17-year-old Is Indicted In Joliet Strangling

Victim's Mother Says Police Failed Her

July 24, 1997|By Joseph Tybor, Tribune Staff Writer.

A Will County grand jury accused a 17-year-old Joliet man Wednesday of first-degree murder in the strangling of a Joliet teen, whose decomposed body was found about two weeks after her mother reported her missing.

Christopher D. McCallum, of the 300 block of McDonough Street, was indicted in the choking of Davona Duncan, 18, with a wire. Circuit Judge Rodney Lechwar set bond at $1 million and scheduled arraignment for Aug. 21.

McCallum was being detained, charged with arson in setting ablaze Duncan's 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix, which was found burning behind Joliet Central High School May 14, the day after Duncan had left her home.

Duncan's body was found May 26 in a ditch outside the Joliet Country Club. The indictment stated she was killed on or about the night of her disappearance.

"We only found out today that my daughter probably died the same night," said Duncan's mother, Floretta Duncan.

She said she is upset because she believes that Joliet police failed to believe her suspicions that her daughter was in danger. She said Joliet police believed the teen had run away.

"Hallelujah. Thank God," Floretta Duncan, said upon hearing of the indictment. "I'm definitely not pleased with the Joliet Police Department, with their handling of this case, and I won't be ever. We went two weeks hunting for my daughter and we were the only ones out there looking for her.

"We could have been saved all that stress and had a decent burial. Her body was so decomposed they suggested I not even see her."

The indictment resulted from a joint investigation of the Will County Sheriff's Police and Joliet police, said Lisa Morel Las, director of public administration for Will County State's Atty. James Glasgow.

Joliet police had said they had reports that the young woman was seen in town the day after she was reported missing.

Floretta Duncan said that her daughter knew McCallum from junior high school but that she did not know whether they went to high school together.

"He was not her boyfriend," she said. "He came back in her life for the time he wanted to use her."

McCallum had been in Will County Jail on $50,000 bond after being charged with arson. Wednesday's indictment also included an arson count, which supersedes the earlier charge.

Duncan left her home in the 1300 block of Demmond Street the night of May 13 after receiving a telephone call and never returned. Her mother reported her missing the next day, saying it was unlike her daughter not to come home or call. Duncan was to have graduated from Joliet West on June 6.